Tesar-Reynes

A couple weeks ago week I had the opportunity to attend a student networking session at my alum Columbia College Chicago. Just a year removed from school, I remember what it was like being on the other side of the table selling myself to a rep from a big firm, nervously thumbing through my portfolio. As I listened to a few students tell me about the futures they envisioned for themselves, one thought went through my head: You guys have it easy.

Maybe I’ve been watching too many negative movies, but I feel like it was a war out there last summer. The air was full of fear and pessimism, firms were cutting staff, people were being let go, and graduating seniors were taking any internship they could get their hands on. All that seems to be …

In the last week I have talked to a couple presidents at different marketing services providers. When I asked them if things are better, they all responded pretty much the same way:

• “The free fall is over and clients are thinking about spending money. Money in the sense of “you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” In other words, if I spend it now in an opportunistic manner it is gone; if I wait, something better or worse may help me make the right decision.
• A number of clients are sitting on no inventory so they have lived off the fat of product already produced and paid for. To make more will be at an incrementally higher cost of goods.
• There is no such thing as a long-term plan. The clients seem to want windows of commitment that are only …
  
  [ More ] February 5th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Tough Times |

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A recent story on NPR said the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) most recent report of 10% unemployment may be skewed. According to the story, when you add in unemployed workers who have stopped looking for jobs along with part-time workers who’d like full time jobs, the number of unemployed and underemployed balloons to 17.2%.

I know this is my first recession, but isn’t that number excessively high?

The history reports tell us America’s unemployment rate hit 25% during the Great Depression. 17.2% seems eerily close …

I have tuned out the whole debate. It is a waste of time. As a small business owner, I am acutely aware of the need for reform. BCBS graciously increased our rates by 57% this year. Our insurance guys shopped out our needs to other carriers to no avail. Nobody needs to tell me that a company with less than 10 people is like a fish in a barrel for any insurance company. It is painful and unfair.

I have turned off the debate because it is all hot air and political posturing right now. The media is not telling me news, it is telling me moves in the debate. And, in turn, most parts of the plan have not even reached the mark-up stage. …

I listen to people all day. Many of them admit to their level of terror: they are out of work and can’t find a job; they have taken a lesser position to tide them over; they are consulting and they have skimped on health insurance; they fear they will be part of the next cutback. On and on.

I have lived through a bunch of recessions since I got out of school, but this is the worst I have seen. Normally they seem to bottom out and start ascending after 12-14 months. This one is longer. It is sucking at me.

When I get up in the morning I have to kick-start by resolve before I go to work. Listening to National Public Radio is getting tougher because I …

Call me old fashioned, but don’t throw out all the old to achieve the new. At the end of all the recessions that I have been through, there is “The Great Re-hiring Phase”. Companies start to back-fill vacancies and then selectively grow staff. The hiring managers, who have lived through all the cutbacks and re-orgs, see these raw troops as Manna from Heaven. The newbie’s are thrown into the fray. If they complain, the response often is: “You are damn lucky that you have a job; we can talk about it later when there is time.” There will never be time.

It is up to senior management to initiate a program to address this problem: re-instill the concept …

It was truly a wonderful week last week.  All of the words from the Obama administration were nice to hear but the proof of the pudding was in the Dow Jones numbers.  It went up Tuesday.  It went up Wednesday.  It went up Thursday.  And it even stayed up on Friday.

On Friday afternoon, when there was not a large selloff, I saw a lot of smiling faces as I walked around Chicago. It seemed that all of us were losing the battle against the constant bombardment of bad news; here was a non verbal positive statistic. Now I know that all the pundits are saying that this rally is probably only temporary.  But it’s the first piece of really solid news that we have seen in months.  It’s a little bit like giving …

I woke up the other night in a cold sweat about the economy and the
consequence for me and my family. This was not the first time and I’m
pretty sure this won’t be the last of these occurrences.

So I’m wide awake and walk down to the basement where my office is located. I have a little ritual for fear spasms like this:

1) The first is to realize that I have survived the downturn of 1970, 1980, 1982, 1990, the Dot Com bust and 9/11.

2) The second is to catalog worst case scenarios for me and my family and the likelihood of any of them happening.

3) The third is to focus on the Serenity Prayer and figure out what I can and can’t control.

4) The fourth is …

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I swear my heart drops every time I read one of these articles. Wednesday the Times printed the results of a consumer confidence survey. The survey recorded its worst reading in 16 years.

And in the Tribune, Gail MarksJarvis wrote in article headlined, “Confidence in consumers on the wane”, citing results from a Redbook survey.

Does this make the marketer’s job harder? Of course. But how does it effect the job market in the …